Secondhand Irish Biography Books

'Quietly triumphant.' Donal Ryan 'Ambitious and gentle.' Belinda McKeon 'A terrific book.' Michael Harding In May 2020, John Connell finds himself, like so many others, confined to his local area,...

Sins of the Mother is a powerful and inspiring story of a family whose love was tested but never broken, who finally found the strength to heal the past.Irene Kelly...

The Tailor and Ansty was banned soon after its first publication in 1942 and became the subject of much bitter controversy. It has become a modern Irish classic, promising to...

Fergal Keane is one of the BBC's best known foreign correspondents. His latest work for Radio 4 was "Letter to Daniel", an emotional message to his newborn son. This work...

This is a novel based on the life of Erwin Shrodinger, one of the giants of 20th-century scientific thought. Neil Belton concentrates on the time Shrodinger spent living in Ireland....

'The path I have travelled, the things I have done and the people I have met in crisis situations have given me a window into those qualities that make us...

This is the first volume of the authorized three-volume life of George Bernard Shaw, the playwright, wit, socialist, vegetarian and polemicist. It covers the first 41 years of his life,...

Brian Dowling and Arthur Gourounlian are among Ireland’s most beloved television personalities and social media stars. The internet exploded when the couple announced they were expecting their first child, with...

Alice celebrates the special moments and the everyday blessings of life.Come sit awhile with Alice Taylor. Take a little time out - to rest, to think, or just to be.Life...

Stories to inspire.Stories to connect.Extraordinary moments in which women's lives changed forever.Exhilarating, heartbreaking and ultimately inspiring, The Day That Changed My Life is a remarkable collection of stories of Ireland's...

'This is the most gripping book I've read in ages ... It is beautifully written, fascinating, disturbing and often very funny.' Roddy Doyle The childhood world of Hugo Hamilton, born...

In The Kick, poet Richard Murphy has constructed, from astonishingly detailed diaries kept over the course of five decades, a unique memoir of his life and times. The book is...

This autobiography includes stories of village life in Co Wicklow between the wars, and of schooldays in Kilkenny and of the cosily eccentric Trinity College during the 1940s. Yet even...

In this long-awaited bioraphy, Wilde the legendary Victorian - brilliant writer and conversationalist, reckless flouter of social and sexual conventions - is brought to life. More astute and forbearing, yet...

A force of nature from the day she was born, Lynn Ruane grew up in a loving home in Tallaght, West Dublin. But in her early teens things began to...

Somerville and Ross were two extraordinary Irish writers. Cousins and products of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy world, they reacted both with and against their environment to present in their books a...

On the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, the destitute children swarm and the rich turn a blind eye. To these needy children "Mama Tina" has become an irrepressible, unorthodox...

Winner of the An Post Irish Sports Book of the Year AwardLonglisted for The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award'Not only the sports book of the year, the...

From humble beginnings in Romania, Josef Cretzan went on to become one of the most accomplished glass blowers of the 20th century. For 37 years his knowledge and skills were...

'Donal Walsh was able to see the beauty in life. He spent his valuable time helping us to open our eyes' Cecelia Ahern, authorDonal Walsh lost his battle against cancer...

The Third Daughter begins in 1940s Limerick, where the O'Mara family were merchant princes of the city. The story follows the family fortunes from middle-class comfort to genteel poverty as...

Angela Collins O'Mahony came from a small farming background and originally worked as a secretary for a steeplejack company. One day she was sent to a site to deliver materials...

'Incredibly moving' --Anne Enright, winner of the Man Booker PrizeAn Affair with My Mother by Caitriona Palmer: a moving and gripping story of love, denial and a daughter's quest for...

For once, these men are the objects; I am the subject. Me, me, me.Rosemary Mac Cabe was always a serial monogamist - never happier than when she was in a...

Vivid, hilarious and moving account of Dublin childhood in the 'forties. Fictionalised, but drawing heavily on fact. Full of character and great stories.Bob Quinn's website is at www.conamara.org, containing photographs,...

Charlie Bird has made his name as a front-of-camera reporter covering the news as it happens, from wherever it happens. During his career as a news journalist, he reported on...

"Dignity was our most valuable possession". Joe Duffy is a household name in Ireland. As the presenter of RTE Radio One's "Liveline" programme, he takes the pulse of the Irish...

'Thirty feet above ground, I picked some flecks of peeling paint from my skin and looked clean across the dressing-room rooftops ... to the cars whizzing by on the Straight...

A GARDA, A FORCED ADOPTION, A FIGHT FOR JUSTICEIn 1984, Majella Moynihan was a fresh-faced young garda recruit when she gave birth to a baby boy. Charged with breaching An...

'A wonderful book'David Park, Irish TimesIn 1949, when Marianne Elliott was just a baby, her parents moved into the White City, one of the first mixed-religion estates to be built...